We are all workmen: prentice, journeyman, or master,—building you, you lofty nave. Sometimes an earnest traveler comes to scan our labor, whose help is a wind to fan our souls, as sunlight on the architrave. Upon the rocking scaffolding we rise, the hammers in our hands swing heavily, until a gracious hour hither flies, whose radiance is wonderful and wise, hailing from you as wind hails from the sea. Then many hammers echo south and north, and on the heights their throb is like a blast. Only with dusk we yield you up at last: And see your shaping contours shadowed forth. God, you are vast. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...INTO BATTLE by JULIAN GRENFELL SOUTH WIND by SIEGFRIED SASSOON LINES ON THE MONUMENT OF GIUSEPPE MAZZINI by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE SEA-SONG by WILLIAM DRUMMOND BAKER FIGHT! (HARVARD-DARTMOUTH FOOTBALL GAME, 1908) by HARRY RANDOLPH BLYTHE ELEGY by ROBERT SEYMOUR BRIDGES THE ROCK OF LIBERTY; A PILGRIM ODE, 1620-1920: 2. STRUGGLE by ABBIE FARWELL BROWN EPIGRAM ON ONE BORN BLIND, AND SO DEAD by WILLIAM BROWNE (1591-1643) |